For decades, I have been on the forefront for a strong culture of Cameras, long before California mandated it for Police officers. I however believe it is best for civilians to embrace a strong culture of cameras, civilians owning cameras more than the governments. Among the obstacles to body cameras was high cost, but thankfully that is no longer the case. Our Journalists must wake up to push along with me in unprecedented efforts. I will also call upon caring business folks and politicians to accept the blessings of cameras and work together beyond security. In one of my articles, titled: ‘Top Four Universal Targets…’, worldwide culture of cameras was among them. This piece further explores ideas to improve body cameras, sell it to the people beyond security, minimally compensate, and immensely reward the top ten in an annual lottery, etc.
Quick Recap: A strong culture of cameras concurs both with Showlove Trinity as a means and Justice as an end. Showlove Trinity is my philosophy, summed as: let’s learn, let’s work, let’s have fun. Using one real example: a few years ago, I saw a vulture ‘fought off’ a dog on Banjul beach over a piece of meat. Within seconds, spreading its wings, bracing its head, moving/standing its ground and not running away, the barking dog had to run away… It was a special moment these words can do little justice to, but if I was with a Sunglass camera as example, a smart television will not only welcome such a footage, but imagine the possible commentaries beyond TV, but in high school to university classes? Enormous learning and enormous fun that the quickest person cannot pull a cellular or mobile phone to record such and miss how many seconds of interesting moments?
Partially answered prayers: As said, the cost of body cameras was too high, often around $99 in ‘ugly’ cop like cameras that many civilians may find awkward to wear. Meta offered sunglasses cameras a lot later and for about $200 and more, making it even worse against poor folks. Well, our ‘Angelic’ Chinese manufacturers have finally entered the sunglass body camera market with the average great camera going for around $20 and lower versions for even under $10. Considering an ordinary laborer makes about $10 a day in poor Gambia and many African countries, I will say it is finally affordable. How do we convince a laborer or struggling teacher that they should invest in such cameras if they care about their security more than complaining about rising crime rates? How do we convince a teenager+ who wants to spend $5 on sunglasses for fun or sun ‘protection’ to instead spend $10 or $20 to get one with a camera for countless things? You get a salesperson like me or better on TV to sell the idea from point to point.
Minimally compensate and immensely reward top ten through annual lottery: Whereas about 25% of the population may buy just because of the benefits, but if we sweeten the deal with huge financial offers, then expect around 75% of the populace to participate, embrace culture of cameras and countless benefits and spin-offs to follow suit. Imagine an ad: Buy our QTV, TFM, Silverbird, or Xyz TV Sunglass or any body camera from $10 to be paid around $10 if we use your footage on TV/Online news, but we will also enter you on a lottery+ to win from hundred thousand dollars to one million dollars at the end of the year. Well, I suggested about ten winners. So I will say a panel of judges may give top prize to the one whose footage they found most useful, from helping to solve a crucial crime to the ‘most interesting video’ that made you money or raise your name internationally? Then use your imagination on many award categories, but one to include anyone who bought the body cameras, and another one from those whose footage was used. How many companies will sponsor such awards? How transparent will the end of year lottery/award be, plus a special event for peace and fundraising?
Discouragement tactic: Once we mention a reward of up to a million dollars, too many people may participate to overwhelm a limited staff. So how about a ten cent to one dollar submission fee, through a special number? If you get hundred or thousand submissions a day and million a year, staff sorting costs matter and profit to go towards the awards. So the ‘dummies’ help pay the authentic ones, but all still get varying levels of chances to win.
Brand: Many of the companies that are manufacturing such body cameras, beyond sunglasses, will gladly work with you to have your own brand if you are ordering around ten thousand pieces or more. You will be able to add your own special features, sometimes things they never thought about and may even compensate you for your ideas, or at least appreciate your partnership. Let’s say Huawei or xyz have a model at a reasonable cost, the same or a few added features they never thought about, helps all, it can be multi-billion dollars if you sell worldwide, not just your country or continent. You can outperform Meta Sunglasses even in the u.s, Europe, and beyond, but will you send me a check of appreciation? If you have no appreciation plan, I pray you fail and worldwide culture of cameras to still succeed asap. Remember Sunglasses are just one aspect of the game or culture, we need belt cameras, pen cameras, shoe cameras, hat cameras, etc. Remember owning one body camera is the minimum, but having multiple body cameras should be the present and near-future norm. Beside the solid ones, a re-attachable version to your favorite glasses will help. Beauty matters and people can be picky, so seriously consider many options to cater for different tastes. Consider a special store, from body cameras to vehicle cameras, and may God reward you and me with more than the Nobel Peace Prize, happiness, great health, protection, and every good.
Special features examples: Between battery charging and storage, present body cameras can significantly improve; software can also see some improvements. A four-hour battery for body cameras is considered good today, but we should not wait for only battery leaps. If your brand happens to have Bluetooth or XYZ charging, then a lightweight power bank in your pocket, belt, backpack, etc, can recharge it to make it 24 hours. Such will make it feasible beyond the body, but to be used in certain homes and other places. The world of storage tends to offer SD cards, but if you can have multiple storage points, including your phone’s SD card, then to other non-stealable storage, it can immensely help. All you need is a great software team-up for simultaneous recording or periodic automatic uploads to your phone’s SD card, for example. Similarly, a great software on how it records day vs night, lower when dormant versus higher record quality when motion detection exists are crucial for battery and space saving as examples.
Journalists’ tasks: I expect the best journalists in every country to forward to fellow journalists around the world, but also to meet the top caring business folks and politicians to help secure your respective countries. Tell your fellow journalists to demand evidence and help improve journalism beyond narration of eyewitnesses or claims you may have to investigate with too much hardship? I pity any woman who gets sexually assaulted of even butt spanking, but not the women who refuse to invest where evidence matters. The excuse mongers may claim such assaults do not occur in public places, but at least 10% to 25% of such can be tackled with human efforts on body cameras and other forms of cameras. I still believe in education as the best approach for humans, but punishment does help and I am among those who believe in evidence, not blind trust for women or anyone… As Journalists, I do not need to lecture you on how to sell the idea to business folks, but reminding you efforts means trying multiple business folks in your country and they may thank you if all goes well. Although there are smart rich folks, some rich folks are dumb and may need explaining more than you may assume. Some of them also fear pioneering and may never be grateful to a person, group, or society that helped or still helping them. I also hope God remembers every journalist and anyone who sincerely works for worldwide realization…
Government Back-up: Although I think smart caring business folks should carry it up, with or without government. The fact that such a culture can immensely improve security makes it a government task. If I were president or minister of Interior, I would have invited all the top business folks of my country and even international ones to a special dinner and virtual meeting. ‘My government is ready to guarantee up to two million dollars investment on cameras with clear guidelines. Suppose you do not make money by opening this special needed store, within two years, we will refund you your lost up to xyz dollars.’ Finance versus peace versus infrastructure and judiciary cost? I think the role of government goes far beyond infrastructure for the elite and diverting a few kilometers of tar road towards such is smart. Reducing crimes is worth billions of dollars, but also reducing the cost of the judiciary, from lengthy investigations to less crimes to prosecute. Again, this guarantee is just to alleviate fears and will likely never be paid.
Herd Immunity: The world of cameras is primarily to deter (prevent) problems, and secondarily to solve problems. To deter problems, you attain herd immunity when you have over 75% of a neighborhood or country embrace the culture. A percentage of criminals will fear if even 25% of folks have cameras, but the defiant criminals will resist, but they still avoid areas/people with the most cameras. So your responsibility to buy matters, but you must convince others to buy and even pressure others where need be or feasible. For example, as cameras get cheaper, if your neighbor refuses to invest in cameras, but gives money to marabouts, praise singers, marry wives, etc then when thieves attack such a neighbor, you should charge them a fee to release footages your cameras may capture. It is a let’s world, so everyone must do their part. A similar reality exists in the world of body cameras, there will be deterrence as more buy and there will be instances when others’ cameras can help you beyond solidifying multiple evidence. If a thief snatches your purse and sunglass camera, you may or may not have a belt or shoe camera to help recover that, but if someone or multiple people behind or around you capture it with their sunglass or xyz camera, then such evidence will carry lot more weight than only traditional ‘eye witness’ descriptions.
Chain Immunity: Unlike herd immunity, chain immunity is a new term I coined to mean working with partners, mainly companies. So besides recording with your local disk and phone, a pretty girl walking alone in the bush or after hours can stop a thief or rapist if chain immunity becomes a strong culture as herd immunity. If you tell a potential attacker that you have chain immunity, that even if they steal your phone, you are recording to something like ‘icloud’ or something new like QCell or xyz ‘security partner’ backup, then they may back-off. I do not need to explain how things like ‘icloud’ work if you have trusted friends with the key or password. However, Qcell or xyz, your special security partner can be through national automatic upload, working on frequencies like 911 (emergency), uploading to a disk far from you. It could be multiple disks, one at the cell tower and/or relayed to a special hard-disk at an office for police investigations, where need be, through a warrant.
Chain immunity at worldwide international level may require u.s collaboration. Although Trump is hard to predict, I consider him largely opposed to violent crimes. So if approached properly, Trump may waive every associated cost of such data transfer. Suppose he refuses to work with us on that, then continental or national efforts can work. I have long called for national and continental intranets. The best of Africans, Chinese, Indians, etc should be able to make an alternative network, large intranet or new internet. I have also called for periodic review of countries for unlimited data for participating countries. For example, u.s can have periodic rates with reasonable conditions. They can say: the Gambia is poorer, average laborer/teacher makes about $10 a day, and since their children need internet education and to reduce free time they may use to consume drugs and other ills, we are charging a percentage from $10 x 3 million (the estimated population) for unlimited internet or higher rates based on percentage and volume as it is sadly today… Then Senegal or Nigeria pays little more than the Gambia, so they pay little more, but subject to periodic review for rates to go up or down. Reasonable conditions will then include, demanding all phone internet service providers to charge $10 or xyz, then sell other services for profit… Special faster internet services like fiber can charge more to the elite…
World Peace: Curtailing crimes with double digit figures is worth billions, if not trillions. So world leaders should seriously discuss and sacrifice where need be. A partnership with the government will always ease our targets, but the culture of cameras is inevitable and I pray God impose it where need be. Like anything, it may have some disadvantages, but the advantages far outweigh, thus I consider it Godly. We have seen how Florida state outlaws recording even brutal cops, but that only means for the best of civilians to resist with mass buying of body cameras, resisting up to supreme court, resisting through education and even protests. Like people have the right to fly drones with cameras that may capture a brutal cop or sex on the streets, once millions buy sunglass cameras in Florida and every state, no sane judge will punish you if your recordings help, or God’s curse be upon the crazy lawmakers and judges who support bad laws. Let privacy be at private places, while public places demand public responsibility, including cameras in all public places. The president of South Africa openly calls on Trump to help curb crimes, but should that be country by country, or more comprehensive than interpol? I think mandatory education up to age 18 or 20, plus other reforms will help eliminate or reduce crimes. We must stop indifference, nationalism, and extreme capitalism of implicit cruelty and blaming of victims with indifference.
Buying to support more research: Some of these companies are doing a lot more than the police we rightly acknowledge or over praise. Some companies, especially in the u.s, are sadly focused on selling to the government through citizen ripping contracts, but some are reinvesting a portion on research for better products. As consumers, we must appreciate and choose the best companies, including those that reinvest a dedicated portion in research. Knowledge matters, including ideas. Share towards every billionaire, every millionaire, every top politician, journalists, and every living person. May God bless us a lot more and bless Showlove Trinity: let’s learn, let’s work, let’s have fun.
By Jarga Kebba Gigo
An Activist and Transformer.
Author of Juts Quhr-aahn.
